


Less Than Three

by QueenAng



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Crushes, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenAng/pseuds/QueenAng
Summary: You should come visit sometime. It's great here.And Grogu misses you :(
Relationships: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 8
Kudos: 199





	Less Than Three

“ _You should visit sometime_.” The lengthy message, full of recounts of wonderful, boring nothingness, ends with the familiar line Din has come to associate with Luke’s letters. “ _It’s great here_.”

This time, though, the little womp-rat seals the deal with a cheeky, “ _And Grogu misses you too_ :(”

The sad face is absolutely playing dirty. Din mentally equates it with a crotch shot.

:(

A colon and a parenthesis had never struck so much guilt.

Well, how the hell is Din supposed to say no to that?

He stashes the latest bounty puck Greef had given him into a storage cell beneath his cockpit and begins to plug in the coordinates Luke sent him a dozen times by now. His fingers move quick across the keypad. He isn’t sure how many times he had typed in the numbers, only for his palm to hesitate over the ‘enter’ button, long enough that the key finally timed out and erased the coordinates again, screen shutting down to blissful black.

He arrives on a planet already familiar to him. He’s got a collection of holo-pics Luke sent him tucked away in a special compartment next to his bunk. A few of his favorites are pinned to the ceiling, in the same notches where Grogu’s hammock used to hang. Luke has a smile of absolute sunshine, even when he’s awkwardly manipulating a holo-snap to catch both him and Grogu at work at some activity. Toiling in the garden, on a trek through dewy woods, on a picnic late in the afternoon. Din tries not to feel jealous and fails every time.

Jealous of Luke. Not of Grogu. Never of Grogu, of course. He just wishes it could at least be them both on a picnic, Grogu seated between them, while a midday sun shines blindingly in the background. Because he’s very passionate about co-parenting, that is. Not because he wants to go on a picnic with _Luke_.

He both hates and loves those holo-pics. Those boring, domestic holo-pics. He falls asleep half-content at Grogu’s obvious happiness and half-seething at being _so gods-damned far away_ from them.

From _him_. From Grogu. Being so far away from _Grogu_.

He lands his newest piece of junk in a field close enough to be within sight of the renovated Jedi Temple. It’s not great yet. Even from a distance, Din can see how some parts of the stone structure are crumbling or missing entirely. But Grogu has never seemed anything but happy with his new living arrangements, and Luke spoils the little womp-rat with more toys than one room could handle.

Luke and Grogu emerge from the sparse woods surrounding his improvised landing pad not long after he opens the exit ramp. Grogu’s big green ears prick forward, and when Luke sets him gently on the grass, he almost stumbles over himself to cross the distance over to Din. The weight of him in his arms brings Din a feeling of peace that nothing else nears.

He steps down the ramp and sees Luke looking over his ship with a critical eye. The Jedi Master doesn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve; no, he projects them to half the galaxy. “Did you have to land so close to the garden?” Luke asks. “I think my flowers are going to get tetanus just from being within a five-mile radius of that thing.”

“Don’t be a shit,” is all Din says.

Luke looks hurt, and Din doesn’t believe it for a minute. He’s got a pretty face and big blue eyes and he knows exactly how to use it. Din would be impressed, if Luke didn’t try using it on him so much. And succeeding. “I thought you liked me.”

“You clearly don’t do a lot of that.”

“What?”

“Thinking.”

“ _Hey_.”

Grogu raises a tiny clawed hand and begins to scratch at the beskar helmet. Din readjusts him in his arms. “In a minute,” he says, fully aware that Luke can still him speak.

“I have your room ready,” Luke says, falling into step beside him.

“You didn’t know I was coming.”

Luke doesn’t respond to that.

They walk into the Jedi Temple, and Din is immediately drawn to the smell of… something, probably meant to be spicy, cooking. “What is that?”

“Oh!” Luke’s face brightens. “Well, I remembered last time you visited you mentioned something about charga soup, so I decided to try to—”

Artoo wheels into the entrance hall, splattered with something red, his beeping sounding torn between panicked and incensed.

“ _Try_ being the key word,” Din says.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Luke says serenely, and Din becomes acutely aware of the smell of something burning.

“Is it on—” Din starts.

“Is it not supposed to be on fire?” Luke looks at him, then frowns the slightest bit. “Oh. I must have misread that part.”

Artoo’s beeps become more insistent.

Luke steps away from Din and Grogu. “All right, all right, I’ll handle it. I’m starting to think things would be a lot more efficient around here if you had a fire extinguisher strapped to you, Artoo.”

* * *

His vacation – as Greef calls it – on the planet doesn’t last too long. He gets a comm message from Greef early one morning, and the man is more frantic than Din’s ever seen him. The word has gotten out about the target having a bounty puck on him. Apparently he had his own men snooping around Nevarro for whoever gave out the puck, and Greef was running out of false flags to distract them.

“You need to go get him. Now,” Greef says. From his tone, Din gathers that he’s taking the whole ‘Din is on vacation while Greef is getting shot at’ thing personally. “If the money stops coming, these goons will be off Nevarro by the next cycle. Take care of it.”

As much as Din wishes he could ignore the message, he knows it’s out of the question. He owes Greef better than this. If he had known the target would start sending out his own hunters to get revenge on who gave out the puck, he might have taken care of it before landing planet-side.

Then he remembers the colon and parenthesis, and he doesn’t buy the lie he’s telling himself.

He starts to head out before the sun rises. Luke is nowhere to be seen, and Grogu is still curled up on Din’s bed, fast asleep. He doesn’t move as Din takes him into his arms and sets off down the hall, until it comes to the one other door that’s closed. It isn’t locked, and Din curses Luke’s naivety at the same time he thanks the universe for the convenience.

Luke sleeps curled up like a manka cat, knees drawn into his chest, blond hair a scattered mess about his pillow. The blankets are all tugged around him in a vast, chaotic mound. He doesn’t so much as budge when Din draws the blankets back slightly to set Grogu down beside him. Grogu is quick to curl up next to Luke’s warmth. It’s a soft, domestic picture Din knows will stay in his mind. He can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be lying down beside Luke, beneath this warm heap of blankets, Grogu settled peacefully between them.

He flees the room quickly.

He leaves a short, curt note on the slightly singed countertop, explaining that he had to go and would be back soon. He grabs his spear from where it rested beside the door, as close to the domesticity of hanging a coat on a coat rack as he would ever get, and heads to his ship.

The bounty isn’t necessarily hard to capture. Din put it off out of pure impatience. Now he feels as though he has even less than he did before he landed on the planet with Luke and Grogu. Maybe he takes some of those frustrations out on the bounty. He ends up in carbonite quicker than most do. Din drops the grey block on Greef’s doorstep early the next morning like a dreth-cat offering up a plains-mouse. He’s back on his ship and powering up the flight engines before Greef responds to the doorbell.

Once he’s in hyperspace, he takes a deep breath for the first time since he left Luke’s planet. He onlines his comm board and sees a new message from Luke. It’s short, much shorter than the ones he’s used to receiving. He wonders, briefly, while the message loads, if Luke is upset with him for departing wordlessly in the middle of the night.

_Come back safe._

_We miss you._

_< 3_

Din wonders if he can get this hyperdrive to go any faster.


End file.
